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Texting While Driving, Guilty?

November 28, 2012 in General Motor Trade News & Info, Motor Trade Insurance News & Info, Tips

Everything is done on phones these days. What used to be a gimmick and a gadget is now a necessity and a gimmick not to have one. While these smartphones are incredibly handy to pretty much every occasion and personality styling, they do hold a massive threat when it comes to driving.

While jumping into a taxi after a few pints last week I was faced with the usual taxi driver talk. This guy was telling stories about how he had found an iPhone and didn’t know what to do. He told me a massive, lengthy tale about how he tried to return it to the owner but hadn’t made any progress. And like any other typical taxi talk, he ended his story with another story. He went on to talk about how he “doesn’t need one of these expensive phones”, to some extent I agreed, although being guilty of owning one of them new Samsung Galaxy phones (and I am guilty of loving it, too), but I do have an old school heart and he was making some good points. That was until he said “I just want something I can text on and that’s it…” while very stupidly driving and hitting in keys on his old Nokia.

I instantly felt a hell of a lot more worried about my safety. I always buckle up, and so should you, but in this occasion I double checked my belt.

I don’t care how confident someone is at driving, I don’t think that you should ever text while driving a car. It seems to be pretty common knowledge and regarded stupid to drive while on the phone these days, but do people really have the same thoughts when it comes to driving and texting? I’m starting to think otherwise.

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“Shut Up, Mate!” – London Taxi Drivers To Be Told When To Keep It Shut

June 26, 2012 in Motor Trade Insurance News & Info, Taxi

We all know the situation, long day at work, can’t be bothered with the hassle of the busy London buses; just need to get home and have a nice cup of tea.

Ugh, it’s raining, but lucky you! You’ve just flagged a taxi in no time! Maybe things are looking up. Ahhh, now’s the time to sit back and start thinking about that cup of tea. But what’s that? Oh, he’s started talking. Who? The taxi driver. “you know what I think they should do, mate?”, ”the whole country is f*cked up, mate, blah, blah, blah”. 

Okay, look. Maybe I’m stereotyping here, but thousands of other people seem to think so. And it’s not that I think there’s anything wrong with having a good chat but I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard ‘opinons’ that were not necessarily politically correct, and other offensive comments that have came from a taxi driver’s mouth. And also for the record, I also have had countless pleasant taxi drivers, so please don’t forget them!

This might all be changing as London taxi drivers are being considered for extra training that would result in them knowing when to keep quiet. The advice would be part of a package of new customer service skills such as welcoming passengers and dealing with stressful situations.

“There is always room for improvement. Perhaps it is good sometimes to keep your mouth shut if you sense vibes from the customer that perhaps they are having a bad day.”

Says John Mason, head of taxi regulation at Transport for London.

In a later statement, he adds:

“London’s taxi drivers are the best in the world. We have no current plans to require knowledge candidates to undertake a customer service element to their assessment, however we are always looking at ways of increasing the quality of service to passengers and we work closely with the taxi trade to see how best we can achieve this.”

 

So, what do you make of this? Do you think that having London taxi drivers receive extra training will help a better service? Personally, I think that the awareness of this can only help the enjoyment of taxi driving in London.

In fact, this whole blog post reminds me of one of my favourite scenes in the movie Spinal Tap:

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